Within Arm's Reach
by Spectographer
Summary: The Other Time told from Harvey's POV (excerpt from The Secretary)


A/N: I thought I'd post this as a one-shot in case anyone ever wanted to reread it. Happy New Year!

They lay beside each other, sprawled out in an after sex slackness, perspiration clinging to their naked skin. The half-moon indent of her nails still show their bite marks into his bicep. Her pale body glows under the city lights, too pure, too perfect. She looks like a photograph and he knows this image of her will never leave his head. He will take this to his grave.

"Is your mom a musician too?" she asks. Her voice has taken on a sexy rasp from its earlier exertion.

Normally the invasiveness of this question would piss him off (the subject of his mother is off-limits, she knows this), but he's already lying bare beside her. He answers her willingly—maybe even eagerly. Pillow talk. He gets it now. "A painter. Why do you ask?"

"I'm just curious to know how the son of couple of artists ends up as a Manhattan attorney."

He lifts himself onto his elbow and smiles down at her through the darkness. "I thought you knew everything."

She turns to face him. "I might have it worked out."

"Let's hear it."

"Well, artists are known for being abstracted, living inside their imaginations, detached from the real world…maybe even a little naïve. Someone in your family had to be the grounded one. The realist that holds on to the responsibility while everyone else gets to live with their head in the clouds. I know that's not Marcus because every time he calls he's telling me about some new wild venture he's on. So that leaves you."

Suddenly he sees himself at fifteen, watching his parents fight because the IRS hit them with a penalty for a missing self-employment schedule. He sees his brother acting up because they couldn't afford the trainers he wanted for his birthday that year. He sees his family fall apart, blaming each other rather than an overly complicated system that treated them unjustly. He sees himself researching tax law for months, finding a clause he could manipulate, writing a letter of appeal. He sees the refund check in the mail, hears his dad ask incredulously "How?" He tells him, it was easy. But it wasn't easy, just necessary…

Someone in the family had to be the grounded one.

"I never thought of it like that," he admits.

"It makes me sad." She scoots closer to him, places her hand on his chest. His heart leaps, like it's trying to press itself against his ribcage to make contact with her fingertips. It flutters, beating out to her in Morse code: _Take me, I belong to you._ "I feel like there is a part of you that wants to be reckless and irresponsible. That wants to escape all of this and get lost, but you've been conditioned to keep your feet set so firmly to the ground with all of your goals and ambitions. I hope you don't get bitter. This city is a grim place to be stuck on the ground in—that stench of piss constantly oozing from the sidewalk, all this pollution and litter. You can't even see the sky properly at night. When is the last time you've seen a star? Or the moon for that matter."

"Do you always get this deep and philosophical after sex?"

"I don't know. Maybe." She kisses his shoulder absently. The freeness of her gesture allows him to let loose some of his restraint. He reaches over, cups the side of her face, trails his thumb lightly across her cheekbone. He wants to tell her she's beautiful, but he feels like this would be too forward. Instead he leans in to kiss her, but before he can get close enough to close the gap she's whispering against his lips: "I'll worry about you now that we're not working together. I know you're destined for greatness, but will you be happy?"

He pulls back, searches her eyes. "You don't think greatness will make me happy?"

"You're the son of artists, Harvey. You're sensitive deep down in there and you're going to need something more substantial than your name on some door."

"So what are you saying? I should give up being an attorney? Go paint my body in mud and interpretive dance to Congolese music?"

She grins at the image. "Is that what you want?"

"No. I want to be managing partner of my own firm. I don't want my name on some door; I want my name on the wall."

"Fine. But I still think you should do some soul searching now that you're done with the DA. You know, that whole Eat, Pray, Love thing. Have a foursome. Get a tan. Go to Botswana and meet the king. Stuff like that."

"Botswana has been a republic since the sixties," he corrects. "They have president now."

"Do they? Good for them."

She brings her lips to his, offering him just a touch and he knows she wants more by the way she lingers, eyes half-open. He runs his hand through her hair, grips the back of her neck and tugs her into him. They crash together, open mouthed, tongues meeting fiercely, breaths catching on their desire.

He pulls her on top of him. She breaks the kiss and sits up, straddling his lap, and he lets his gaze wander down the entirety of her fair lithe body, taking in the sex-ruffled waves of her copper hair, the pale hollow of her throat, the delicate protrusion of her collarbone, the perfect slopes of her breasts. He feels greedy. Half-crazed. He can't get enough of her and this scares him. He was so sure the anticipation would be sweeter than the real thing. Isn't that what they always say? Stupidly he went all in, dove into her bed sheets, dove into her, and now the odds are stacking up against him and he's losing it.

"Can I tell you a secret," he asks.

She stares down at him, hands splayed against his chest for leverage; she rolls her hips toward him, gliding her warm wetness up his length. She is as greedy as he is. "You can tell me anything."

"I settled for being an attorney." He takes her by the hard curves of her hipbones, helping her along. She lets out a moan that sinks into his skin and surges through his nerve-endings. Fuck, how can he already need her again? "I really wanted to be a fighter pilot like in Top Gun."

Her dark eyes flicker. She plants herself above him on all fours, face to face, red hair spilling around them like a curtain. He is intoxicated by the smell of her: coconut and lilacs and her sex and his sex mixed together. "We should role-play that."

He tries not to sound too enthusiastic. "You would do that?"

"Of course. But I should warn you. I take my role-playing very seriously. I can be in character for days."

He is watching her lips move as she talks, thinking about kissing her after each syllable, thinking she's the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen, thinking certainly he's breaking some kind of natural law of the universe with how quickly he's falling for her. "I'll be Maverick," he says.

"Does that make me Goose?"

"No, I couldn't ruin the sanctity of their platonic bromance."

"Ice man?"

"Nah."

"Charlie?"

He runs his hands down her spine, grips her ass. He tries to push her back down on him, but she's defiant. He's not her boss anymore. Does this make her his boss now? "I want you to be my fighter jet."

She smiles down at him wickedly. "Oh, baby. That's kinky."

He brings a hand back to her neck and coaxes her forward. Their foreheads touch; he kisses her deep, tasting lips, mouth, tongue. "C'mon, then," he whispers, "Give me some sexy airplane noises."

"I can't, Mav. My engines haven't been turned on."

"Where's the ignition?"

"I'm not going to recite my damn instruction manual." She pushes her breasts up toward his face. "Fiddle my knobs and find out."

His breath catches at the command. "God, Donna."

"Who's Donna? I'm an F-14."

They both laugh quietly into the darkness and _I love you_ almost falls out of his mouth, but he swallows it back. Nearly chokes on it. She notices. Her expression changes into something more serious, like she's trying to read him and he panics. He grabs her more firmly, this time pulling her upward while sliding himself down so that his face rest centered below her spread legs. He looks up at her over the curve of her cunt, through the swell of her breasts. Her eyes dilate with desire, big black orbs that stare down at him intensely. That crack in his armor is all but forgotten.

She says, "Going straight for the accelerator, I see."

"You know me. I don't mess around." He pulls her hips down and kisses her gently. She breathes in sharp, whispering his name with a pang of urgency. He thinks, I can be in character for days my ass, and nuzzles his face into her cunt, slipping his tongue along her wet seam. Her taste and smell remind him of the sea. Her pussy is the French Polynesia, her hips rock with the waves of Bora Bora waters crashing against the shores of his tongue.

She moans, "Oh fuck, fuck," and falls forward, one hand gripping the sheets, the other tugging at his hair. He licks and sucks and she grinds against his face until she's shuddering into an orgasm, crying out to him and god, making them one, linking it with every filthy word he's ever heard. His dick throbs.

He gives her no time to recover. Grabbing her by the hips, he pushes her down on him until he fills her up. She feels abnormally tight, like he's sinking his dick into a warm wet vise. She is squeezing him from the inside, riding him, pouring out months and months of repressed lust. Her appetite is alarming. He wants so badly to be able to appease her but he doesn't think he can last long enough to send her over the edge again.

He forces her still, his hips kissing hers, trying to regain himself. She slinks her way up his chest, lips slightly parted, hair a mess, eyes wild—a sexy little predator out to fuck him to death. He can't help but grin, hugely, like he's five years old and its Christmas morning. She says, "Fuck me," and rakes her hand through his hair, pulling at it a little bit like she needs his undivided attention. He moves inside of her again, slow and teasing. She continues on, her breath hot against his lips: "Tear me apart. Hollow me out until all that's inside of me is you. You, with your sweet sweet artist soul, paint my insides. I'm your Sistine chapel, Harvey, carve your name all over my walls."

He loses it entirely. He wraps his arms around her and slams himself deep into that maddening heat. She moans, nails digging in his chest and her voice falls soft and seductive in his ear, urging him on.

His entire body spasms and he comes so hard he feels like he's gone blind from the rush. He's stuck whispering her name, over and over again. Donna. For every stolen glance. For every eager dream. For every clandestine smile. Donna. Donna. Donna. He thinks she's broken him until he feels her lips against his, gentle and unhurried, and the distraction shuts him up.

She starts laughing against his mouth, a beautiful, infectious laugh. He joins in. Pulling away, she says, "How the hell did I go from being a fighter jet to your Sistine chapel all in one sex session?"

"Carve your name all over my walls," he parrots, grinning. "Paint my insides—god, you're filthy."

"You loved it. I saw your eyes roll back into your head. I thought you were having a seizure for a minute."

"Definitely convulsing. You should come with a warning label."

.

Day is breaking. The silhouettes of her bedroom gain color and intricacies. For the first time tonight they've fallen silent, clinging to each other, already in a state of mourning. This is their end. The fork in the road where he goes one way and she goes another. He has ended relationships before—many, he's good at it—but this time it feels like he's cutting himself in half and leaving behind the very best parts of him.

He finds himself thinking about what she said earlier, about how there is a part of him that wants to be reckless and irresponsible, that wants to get lost, and he entertains the idea of leaving this concrete path he's laid out for himself and forging a new one with her beside him. He pictures himself stumbling out, hand-in-hand, with this capable, fiery redhead into some unknown. A foursome in Botswana (for her satisfaction; he'll even meet the president), then traveling east, sinking their feet into the sand of the Maldives before it disappears under the ocean. He'll get a tan. She'll try not to burn. He'll give up his suits for swim shorts and grow out his facial hair. Maybe learn to surf. She'll lay out on the beach in a big straw hat and sundress, no panties underneath, watching him face-plant into the waves until she gets tired of it and dives in to show him how it's done. He won't get his name on any doors or walls, but he'll have it attached to her. She'll be the Mrs to his Mr, and maybe that will be enough. They won't buy a house, they'll build one together. He'll get her flowers of every kind: roses, chrysanthemums, tulips, lilacs and not just on special occasions, but because she makes his heart race. He'll fly with her, head in the clouds, faded. He'll be Maverick and she'll be—not his wingman—but his wings. He's got the soul of an artist and she is his canvas and he'll tear the world apart to paint her perfect. And when dawn comes, she will still be in his arms because they have melded together to the point where he doesn't know where she ends and he begins and they are endless.

He wants to confess it all to her. To spill every secret he's ever had. He wants to turn himself inside out, upside down. He wants to tell her that he loves her, loves her in a way he's never loved anyone else, but he's too much of a coward and if he's honest, she deserves better than him anyway.

Saying their goodbyes, she doesn't ask him to call or keep in touch. Not even a 'see you around'. She is standing in the doorway with him, cup of coffee in one hand and a sheet wrapped around her like a little Roman senator, smiling when she says, "I would say good luck out there, but you don't need it."

"You're right," he says, trying to smile as easily as she does. "I don't."

"I'll keep an eye out for you in the paper." She seems to rethink this. "Although as a corporate lawyer, I doubt you'll end up there all that much."

"I'll find a way." Just for you, he thinks. "And I'll keep an eye on Broadway. I heard Anna Karenina is casting."

"Ooh, I've always wanted to throw myself in front of a train."

"Don't spoil it for me."

"You've never seen it?"

"I'm not really a fan theater, but I'd watch it if you were in it."

"That's really sweet of you. I'd love to look down and see you snoring in the front row."

"Nothing closer than second, I'll need a foot rest."

"Stop it, Harvey, you're making me swoon."

They share a smile, and he sees the goodbye start to come up to her lips and he feels a little like he's going to falling apart so he says quickly, "Let's not make a big show of it."

Donna gives him a small shrug that seems to say "As you wish," and that's enough for him to turn and walk away, leaving that little redheaded Roman peering at his retreating figure with a quirked eyebrow, curious but unhurt. It bothers him, the ease at which she lets him leave and he thinks for the first time that maybe they are feeling things differently. Maybe she looks like she feels nothing because she actually feels nothing; it's logical, but he tries not to dwell. It's not like it matters.

Stepping out into the busy streets of Manhattan, Harvey already feels like less of himself. Ever since she entered his life his whole purpose has come into focus, like his future was a vague idea but having her beside him has helped solidified it. She has been his constant support, driving him forward, unafraid to challenge him when he strays. He feels terrified that he can't do this on his own, that he needs her too much, and he wishes for a place where he is made in a way that will let him and her fit together. A place where he doesn't have to choose between loving her and leaving her and then he realize—in what feels like an earth shattering epiphany—that they already had that place. The DA. It was just the right amount of closeness and separateness that he was content.

He could keep her. Hit rewind. Go back to being boss and secretary. The perfect relationship in Harvey's mind: close, but not close enough for things to get complicated. No one gets hurt. Symbiotic. Win-win. He'll look at her as a functional unit, take her out of his wank-bank, avoid lilacs and coconuts and whipped cream and clean lines; he'll never visit the French Polynesia again, or the Sistine chapel for that matter. Probably won't watch Top Gun for a while.

He'll keep her within arm's reach but at arm's length, loving her as a secret, always at the tip of his tongue.


End file.
